Peter Epp was born in 1725 in Petershagen in the Danzig area of Polish Prussia. [The city of Danzig is now Gdansk.] He later moved to Neunhuben and then into Danzig. At age 32 he was elected deacon by the Flemish Mennonite congregation of Danzig. A year later, he was elected minister.
In 1770 the Danzig City Council ordered all churches to hold a day of prayer in the hope that God would spare them hard times, war, and disease. Peter Epp preached a particularly good sermon that day, calling the congregation to repentance.
Polish Prussia had two main groups of Mennonites—Flemish and Friesian. For both groups, Low German was the language of everyday life. However, both groups had brought the Dutch language with them from Belgium and the Netherlands. Dutch was their language for preaching, Bible reading, and hymn-singing. As time went on, the government put pressure on them to switch to German. Peter Epp led this switch in the early 1770s. German became the language of church.
By the 1780s, the government was restricting Mennonites' right to buy land. As a result, some welcomed news that came in 1786. Russia was looking for immigrants to farm the grasslands of South Russia [now Ukraine]. By 1788, more than 200 Mennonite families had left for Russia. However, they had no official church leadership. They needed an elder to guide them. Peter Epp agreed to be that elder. He preached his farewell sermon August 2, 1789. Sadly, he became ill almost immediately and died in November.
Peter Epp didn't get to go to Russia, but several of his children did. They were devout and able individuals who helped provide leadership to newly arrived Mennonite settlers in South Russia's "sea of grass."
[The above is based on a paper presented by Adolf Ens at an Epp genealogical workshop in Winnipeg, June 1998.]
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